And Another One...

Another successful weekend at Dogfish! I know, it’s been like a month since we did this...actually more, a month would have been two three days ago, but Dogfish did an awesome beer release in March that I had the GREAT pleasure of attending. “Wrath a Pecant,” a collaboration brew with Dogfish Head and the Beer Advocate bros, was released March 12, 2010. I had to go to this...so I made a weekend out of it!

Conveniently DFH is located about an hour and half south of my hometown AND (also incredibly convenient) my grandmother has a condo at Rehobeth Beach, the city housing the DFH brew pub. Two nights, three days of nothing BUT Dogfish Head.

Friday March 11, 2010

We started early...well I call it early but it was really around cocktail hour, I just knew this was going to be one of those marathon nights - what with the crowd I was with and the sheer fact that the plan was to spend the evening at DFH brew pub. But we did do a pre-game...Burton Baton was in hand and the buzz was solid.

After a few (not a couple...a FEW!) we strolled through deserted Rehobeth in the hazy 45 degree weather. Round one, DING, was a Johnny Cask - not something that is readily available. Johnny Cask is a blend of the 60-minute and 90-minute IPAs supplemented with a bunch of other shit (whole-leaf hops, maple syrup!) that you can read more about HERE. And this beer is really excellent. It’s nice because casked IPAs (and beers in general) open up in a pint glass on a different level then the highly carbonated IPAs from the keg. Every taste becomes so apparent. The extra hops, the sweet highlights against a bitter background, they all become delightfully attention hungry.

Round two DING Life and Limb - another collaboration beer, DFH and Sierra Nevada, which you may recall, caused quite a stir in the craft beer community late last year. It released as a VERY limited edition beer with only something like 4500 cases released in DE in the beginning. People were buying and selling them at a 50 percent markup. My own little anecdote: when all this was happening, my buddy (one of the trifecta of my beer friends) got his hand on two bottles. I begged and begged to buy it from him...thirty bucks? forty? Wouldn’t sell. Well Dec. 25th passes and the next shift we worked together he handed me a box...with a bottle....wrapped in xmas paper....I couldn’t believe it!! I still haven’t drank it yet.

Some food was involved - DUH! An order of ribs...the day’s special, roast beef sandwiches, onion rings. I love Dogfish Head, I love their brew pub, and honestly NOTHING WOULD EVER keep me from going there, BUT! the food isn’t awesome for being such an awesome place. Not sure what I would recommend and maybe it’s just because I high expectations...

What did everyone else order? Well a RANDALLIZED Aprihop passed through our table. What’s RANDALLIZED, you ask? Or maybe you know...in that case READ ABOUT IT AGAIN.

RANDALL the Enamel Animal is an “organoleptic hop transducer module.” A big ass filter stuffed with hops that pipes beer in from the keg and out into YOUR glass.

Final Round DING ....HEAVEN AND HELL! Jesus...the name is totally indicative of the EXPERIENCE of this black and tan, and it IS an experience. First it’s heaven, blissful, delicious. Then you realize it’s 18 + percent and you just strap yourself in for the ride.

Heaven and Hell is World Wide Stout and 120-Minute done in a black and tan style. Comes in a 6oz snifter and two definitely KO’d all four of us, DING.

Saturday March 12, 2010

The adventure continues...

Today was the BIG day, the RELEASE. The release NOT ONLY of Wrath of Pecant but also of the Liquor De Malt, as the name suggests, a malt liquor. The first half of the day, we waited in line at the brew pub to get our ONE bottle we were allowed to buy and then spent another hour scheming on how we could get another. Not because any of us particularly LIKED malt liquor. Not because we wanted to bring some back with us to give to someone we knew who LIKED malt liquor. Simply because we’re four greedy bastards.

Right - so following our stint at the pub, we made our way across slower lower Delaware to the fair city of Milton! Our tour was at three, so we spent some time perusing the newly outfitted store housed under what would otherwise be the brewery. My favorite product (besides their most obvious item), was a rubbery DFH cover for a Macbook. The place was completely different from how I left it three years ago... No longer did the audience enter through the top almost directly into the brewing chamber, but instead, like I suggested, we entered into the large DFH retail store. The tour was literally a two room tour as the flight-attendant stunt double pointed to the silos, brewing vessels, and four of the specialty barrels. Hate to be so snobby, BUT my private tour with the OLD brew master was MUCH superior (not as cute, but...).

Anyway, the day continued with a 20-bottle purchase (collectively) of the Wrath of Pecant and a retreat back to the apartment for a rather quiet evening. The trip concluded with a four hour game of Talisman, the conclusion of one of our eight bottles of the Liquor De Malt, and a general attitude of pleasure (except when I kicked everyone’s ass - specifically that feather boot-wearing Warrior - as the Elf).

Doing the Charleston

A few weeks ago I moved a very good friend of mine to Charleston, South Carolina. I stayed a few days, until she settled in, giving myself some time to explore while she worked, whined, complained, and generally adjusted to her new city.

A pale pastel feeling poured over me as a cruised through Charleston in the mid-afternoon, a feeling that only a southern city could provide for my stone-cold yankee heart. Even with its pastel facade, it was a city full of history, deep memories of heavy stone and brick.

But the dynamic of the city is lacking an insatiable substance - like only the shell of a Faberge egg. Who are the locals? Where do the citizens, the native community of Charleston, exist?

It seems like these Charlestonians left, or are being pushed aside, in favor of a national (seemingly northern) dynamic. The “substance” of this eloquently southern city is washing away, leaving something in Charleston to be desired...

The restaurant at which we dined seemed to capture this image (my mind’s image) of Charleston.

The quaint little Mediterranean cafe-ish (what I would call more of a trattoria) establishment, Sermet’s Corner (an unfortunate name), caught our attention as we hungrily paced King street in downtown Charleston. A prime location, on King street, just shy of “South of Broad,” the corner establishment seemed harmless, unassuming, and in the perfect location for our dining pleasure.

It was a large, single room space. A petite bar ran alongside the far left wall while the rest of the tables for dining (consisting of perhaps twenty four) filled the remainder of the room. We were sat by a very pleasant-looking exotic gentleman in the corner next to King street - the perfect people-watching location - against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

The interior was a lightwood accented with wrought iron ornamentation. Two pillars stood stoically in the middle of the dining room with carved iron wine bottle holders attached like necessary appendages. Our waitress was a cold type, probably pinning us as the northerners we were, and she thought she’d treat us as such (something of which I am certainly in favor). Lacking that slight twinge South Carolinians seem to have, she seemed like a northern transplant, anyway.

Without admitting it, the place was italo-centric. The traditional pasta dishes littering the entree listings, a fresh mozzarella and tomato pesto sandwich, and an extensive wine list gave them away. In line with the greatest of Italian restaurants, the draft list was questionable: three beers on tap, one of which had been kicked for the night by 8 p.m. No worry, the bottle list was actually decent. As I perused the bottle list, I recognized all but one. A brew called, Palmetto Amber. I inquired with our possibly yankish server to find it was a local Charleston brewery. Naturally, I ordered one.

It was a seductive amber color (oddly enough...) with a deliciously nutty, caramel scent and (something which I have found recently to be a serious issue in the craft brewery industry) not a bad looking bottle. Definitely a smooth, inoffensive quality of drinkability with a nutty, earthy feel. The draught finished with a slight, but acute citrus/fruity sting. Honestly, not much imagination to it, leaving something, certainly, to be desired.

We ordered from a truly verbose menu (with grammatical errors as my companion pointed out). But, none-the-less, mouth watering. An excerpt from the brunch menu: “Cinnamon-orange scented French toast with sweet ricotta and warm honey.” (wow)

I ordered a chicken and spiced-sausage dish sautéed with a red wine reduction over penne. It sounded just deliciously inviting.

We chatted lightly over a second drink, for me a regression to an old favorite, Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale, and enjoyed the complimentary, dare I say, Italian bread with tomato infused olive oil while we waited for our dinner.

Dinner arrived in good time.

My pasta dish was swimming in an oily slime of a cream sauce which turned me off right away, not very delicate. Though a little sloppy, the sauce was quite good. Overall, however, I’d say this wasn’t their best performance. Sausage hunks floated around in the saucy ooze topped with frozen peas. Seemed as though the chef was in a hurry.

Honestly, the experience was tolerable (though the food not). The place was quaint and aesthetic pleasing. The company was good. But again, a gapping hole was left unfulfilled, unsatisfied, needing a second look at the city of Charleston.